Fox News to pay $787.5 million to voting machine maker Dominion over false allegations of vote-rigging and loss to former U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, one of the largest ever paid out in defamation cases featuring a media company in the United States. It is reported by CNN.
Fox News settled the claims out of court and entered into a settlement agreement before the start of the process by the manufacturer of voting machines. $787.5 million is about half of the amount claimed by the plaintiff in compensation.
Since the 2020 election, Trump supporters have claimed that the vote count in a number of states was rigged in favor of Joe Biden and that voting machines helped in this. Subsequently, this wave of indignation led, among other things, to the storming of the Capitol. The plaintiffs allege that Fox News contributed to these allegations in their stories.
The company said in a statement that it agrees with the decision of the court, which recognized some of the claims about Dominion as false. According to the case file, 20 Fox News broadcasts since 2020 have contained false allegations that Dominion rigged the presidential election. However, the channel will not have to admit on air that it has been spreading lies about Dominion, a CNN spokesperson said.
Trump himself claimed that the Democrats “stole” the victory from him, since “illegal” ballots were taken into account when counting votes, and Republican observers were not allowed to control the procedure. His headquarters filed a number of lawsuits alleging violations. In January 2021, protesters demanding a reconsideration of the election results stormed the US Congress building on Capitol Hill following Trump's calls on Twitter. Some of his supporters began to attack the fences near the Congress and entered into a confrontation with the police, who used pepper spray. Ultimately, hundreds of Trump supporters with US flags climbed the stairs of Congress and entered the building. The session had to be stopped - Vice President Mike Pence was evacuated from Congress for security reasons.